Last week the Taliban opened an office in Doha, Qatar with the US
government’s blessing. They raised the Taliban flag at the opening
ceremony and referred to Afghanistan as the "Islamic Emirate of
Afghanistan"—the name they used when they were in charge before the US
attack in 2001.

The US had meant for the Taliban office in Doha to be only a venue
for a new round of talks on an end to the war in Afghanistan. The
Taliban opening looked very much like a government in exile. The Karzai
government was annoyed that the US and the Taliban had scheduled talks
without even notifying Kabul. Karzai’s government felt as irrelevant to
negotiations on post-war Afghanistan as they soon will be on the ground.
It seemed strangely like Paris in 1968, where the US met with North
Vietnamese representatives to negotiate a way out of that war, which
claimed nearly 60,000 Americans and many times that number of Vietnamese
lives.